


How about applying some Physics?

by TctyaDDK



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Internal Monologue, Mental Health Issues, Physics, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Stream of Consciousness, as per suggestion of my proof reader, plagiarism tag left out until I actually use the plot elements from others
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-07 10:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18871168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TctyaDDK/pseuds/TctyaDDK
Summary: A struggling student got thrown into the A:tLA world. Since the butterfly effect is inevitable, trying to save his own hide, he might as well change the world. With science, of course. Mostly?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The plot bunnies came and I could not get this out of my head, so here goes nothing. It seems to be the result of the loads of media that I consumed over the years filtered through my haywired brain with its failing capability to concentrate and plagued with uncontrolled daydreams. (This would be a self insert fic, if you haven't guessed already, and I apologise in advance, that I tend to ramble in my head a lot) Also, it's my first attempt to write something this complicated, thus, naturally, there will be lots of elements, ideas, bits and pieces that I picked up from works of other authors, and memes. I will try to put up credit if I can recall where the bit came from, though I figure that might still constitute plagiarism. If you don't like such problematic work, or have no interest in this mess of self indulgence, please at least tolerate its existence and just ignore it. Thank you.  
> Various plot elements in this fic, aside from the A:tLA series of Nickelodeon and the generic "isekai" trope, come from: "Embers" by Vathara, "Another Brother" and "The Avatar Makes Three" by AvocadoLove, "Morality Chain" by Pureauthor, "Traitor's Face" by Loopy, "dynasty of storms" series by Nautica_Dawn, plus some reading into "What SHOULD have Happened in AtLA" by daveshan.

Fuck this weather, goes the complaint in his head. It's already past the Ides of May and he still couldn't help but shudder a bit without a jacket in the afternoon. A little less cloud would solve everything: heat, light, O2 from trees hence less CO2, more electricity from solar panels which helps reduce CO2 emission some more, but no, it has to be very cloudy, and with drizzle on top of that. Why can't it be a downpour and be done with it quickly instead of this semi-cold semi-moist irritating shit? Granted, this is right in the middle of Lower Saxony, the weather couldn't be as intense as his worm-shaped homeland on the western shore of the Pacific ocean, but even after three years here, he still couldn't like it. Saarbrücken is still his prefered city to live in should he choose to stay in this Land of Many Germ, which he wouldn't. The medical service here is terrible for those with many problems and little money such as he. And that's if the Foreigner Office approve his request to extend the residence permit, he took a little legal misstep recently with his study plan at the uni recently...

Lines and lines of such rambling thoughts go on in his head as he walks up the ramp to the raised platform of Schneiderberg tram stop, eager to go home, may be drop by the grocery store for some fresh meat and fruits on the way too. His Analytical chemistry practice session was dismissed early today for some planned adjustments of the ventilation system, which requires the fume hoods be vacated; and the lab instructor also has to oversee the restocking of liquid gases and other chemicals. Even so, dealing with the H2S group was more confusing than he anticipated, all those filtrations took so damn long, plus that faint yet persistent aroma of sewage, the testings today was really grating on his nerves, and he feels so tired. For most normal people, or even for him as he was years ago, six-hours lab work wouldn't be as draining as it does him now, but ever since his upper spine was damaged by undetected bone tuberculosis two years ago, his stamina has dropped significantly. If only he didn't have to share the dorm with that loud smelly annoying prick who spread the disease to him (he wish that asshole coughs out his lungs and die while smoking his weed); if only the doctors here were more competent and caring and test him more thoroughly to detect it before his vertebrae are half eaten. Now, after a year off for treatment in his far away homeland and failing to pick up on where he left off on Mechatronics, he switched major, hoping for a fresh start, or at least for finishing a degree before he dies, and so far the studying is going ok, but it might proof iffy on the legal side. Nah, he decides to leave those tiring technicalities for later, when he had energy to spare.

Stopping before reaching the stop shelter, where an old woman is reading a pocket book on the bench (she's very old and/or frail as she needs breathing aids with portable oxygen tank along with her rollator. The mobility that technologies and wealth grants people never fail to impress him, despite his past experience with the medical services here), he twists his back a bit, resulting in some satisfying cracks from the joints of his barely holding on spine. The stop's loudspeaker plays the bell chimes and announcement: " _Linie 5: Stöcken_ ". His northwest bound tram is arriving. Pedestrians, some of his lab mates included, crossing the street as the traffic lights switched, starts picking up speed to catch the ride.

Suddenly, there is a screech of brakes and blarings of carhorn from somewhere far off behind him. Turning around, he sees it: from the northwest, on the street parallel to the tram rails, approaching the road fork by the tram stop, is a speeding truck, seemingly paying no heed to the two cars and rows of crossing pedestrians at the red light ahead. Encroachs on a full third of the opposite lane, the truck with multiple rows of big gas cylinders secured on the trailer caused the panicked driver facing it to swerve right to avoid collision, which resulted in the screech and blaring moments earlier. "Ah, must be the delivery for the restocking of the lab. Why such rush though?" he thinks. "And why is the driver is slumping on the wheel? Is he unconscious or something? Welp, merde, this is bad." The cars at the red light seem to have also catched on, rev the engines and blare the horn to tell the walkers to get out of the way.

His brain's alarmed/panic mode kicks in, and everything starts to feel like being in slow motion, including, unfortunately, his limbs. The truck driver keels over to his left, dragging the wheel with him, thus veering the truck further to the side until it hits a street light, topples and tumbles over its right side, smashing its entire gas cylinders rack and other crates onto the ground, right where the cars were half a second ago. Said cars' drivers apparently decided that their lives worth more than that of three panicking straggling pedestrians and threw full throttle ahead, leaving smoking tire marks, one man (Felix, his lab mate, he recognises) tossed over windshields onto the air and two others hurled to the sides. The gas cylinders burst under impact, the spilling pressurised gases start rapidly drawing heat from surrounding air and ground, condensing water vapours into a thick cold spreading fog and encasing the wet asphalt in ice. The truck's fuel tank, swinging in air with the rolling truck, crashes through the stop shelter's glasswall and the old woman at the bench, gets punctured by the steel railings and sprays its black liquid content around as it hit the concrete platform.

He desperately thinks of options, even as his limbs feel like wading through thick mud. The tram has arrived at the stop, blocking his way to the underneath of the raised platform, and it's not likely that the tram driver would open the doors anytime soon, given the circumstances. The gap over the tram's cars connector is about seven meters away to his left and being hailed point blank with flying broken glass, fuel oil and a whole tail end of a tumbling (toward him, to boot) truck, so no go. To his right is the spreading fog from the gas cylinders, and it could end him in one breath, if those people falling like scythed wheats were any indication. Might be some heavier inert gas, like krypton, argon or nitrogen, he thinks. At least it would reduce the risk of fire and explosion.

He takes a last quick deep breath, holds it and starts running toward the end of the tram, hoping to cross the deadly fog to the open park on the other side of the tram stop where he probably would have a slightly better chance. Barely a step in, the white fog before him was flashed with bright orange light, and something hits him in the back, even through the slingpack with its contents and his jacket he can still feel its heat, accompanied by a concussing sound of an explosion. He is thrown forward right into the fog, and having had his breath knocked out by the impact, he instinctively takes a breath in. Cold fog and concrete in his face, hot solid hit in his back, the suffocating feeling with full lungs of inert gas, and "oh right that old lady had a portable oxygen tank" were the last things flashed through his mind before unconsciousness plunges him into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For easier visualisation:  
> The tram stop in this chapter: www.google.com/maps/@52.3851423,9.7125297,19z


	2. Encounter

Something hard greets him with a full frontal heavy impact. No, more like he has just had a belly flop onto a hard surface. Either way, the sudden pain jolts him out of unconsciousness and makes his torso's muscles spasm, squeezing whatever air was left in his lungs out. On the bright side, that gets rid most of the inert gases inside, and the next reflex short breaths bring in fresh air, which wakes him up some more and helps clear his mind.

Curling up a bit to help ease the shaking muscles, he tries a few quick system status check. Ears are still ringing, check again later. No significant sharp pain along the limbs or ribs, hands are still responding, back hurts a bit, but no worse than that after a hefty punch. Around his fourth dorsal vertebra, which previously suffered the most anterior wedging due to tuberculosis, is a fairly noticable dull pain, comparable to those moments when he misjudged the weight and attemted to pick up objects that are heavier than 10kg with a wrong posture, that means it has at least received some shock, which is understandable after the flop, proceed with care later. His sandaled feet are still responding, ok. And it's cold. Verily. Oh right, he remembers, the gas cylinders.

He slowly opens his eyes, and feels his glasses, sandwiched between his head and the hard surface he's on, against his left eyeball. Turning his head a little to relieve the pressure, he takes in the surrounding. It's white and very bright. By the cold and hardness of the surface, he thought he was on the iced over concrete of the tram stop, but apparently he's mistaken. Were he still there, there should be either that reddish brown building of Geology faculty or the green trees and grasses of the public garden in sight in any direction. But before his eyes now is a vast flat white plain extending all the way to the horizon where it meets the clear blue sky. Huh?

That fog from before is seemingly dispersed in all  this openness and nowhere to be seen anymore, so he inhales deeply to prepare for whatever the next step is, and immediately regrets that. The air is not just cold, it's fucking frigid, surprises his entire airway into a series of reflex coughs, which does not help his probably bruising torso one bit. He rolls onto his left to free his hands and for a more favourable position of his back before gingerly pushing himself up, monitoring the signals of his spine for damage, of which luckily there is none. His slingpack is still there, strapped to his shoulder. His head feels slightly dizzy, so he draw his knees up and curls in to spare some blood for the head and also conserving body heat. And sure enough, his tropics-born nostrils, which could barely stand the drier climate of Central Europa, are now suffering in this bone dry air, the more sensitive left one already starts bleeding. He tears halfway through the piece of paper tissue he has left in his jacket pocket, rolls up one side to make a plug for his left nostril, which doubles as an anchor to hold the rest around the right one as an air moisturising chamber with the smeared blood serves as temporary adhesive. Fuck this. He takes back everything he said earlier about the semi-cold semi-moist weather. He would trade everything has on him right now to be back there.

As the dizziness slowly dissipates with slow deep breaths, he lifts his head and look around. The metal frame of his glasses is slightly bent, but for now it's not skewing his view too much. The ground he's currently on appears to slightly slant down toward his front, though surely not enough to make him slip down. 310 degrees of view to the right, front and left, and only more plain whiteness, eyes-hurtingly bright from scattering the sunlight that comes from somewhere above head behind him, stretching to all the horizon where it meet the absolutely cloudless blue sky. Ice, he recognises. The sheen of oil and salt left from his sweat on his face, hands and feet after the lab session saved him from having them frozen onto the ice earlier.

Seriously, what the fuck. How did he end up here on this ice plain anyway? Where is this? By the flatness, vastness and nigh featurelessness of the ice plain, he hazards a guess that this is either of the polar icecaps, so that means the sun somewhere above the horizon behind him should be in the general direction away from the pole. The northern icecap is slightly closer to civilisation, but with thinner and shrinking ice, with dangerous predators both on ice and in water like polar bears and orcas, while the southern has extra thick iceshelf and no significant predator, but thousands kilometers away from any major human settlements. He's not sure which is worse. And that's assuming he's still on Earth and not somehow on Hoth or somewhere equally crazy.

A wind picks up from the front, and his attention is promptly dragged back from his musing on geography to the more immediate issues at hand: he is in dire need for shelter. His polyester jacket with the hood is mostly waterproof and provides a modicum of protection against wind and rain, but it consists only of one layer each of shell and lining, thus is of basically no help against this cold. So are his shirt, relaxed cut jeans and sandals. If only he didn't switch out the shoes after lab work. At this rate his feet are going to fall off from frostbite before finding any shelter. He's already starting to feel that slight drowsiness of hypothermia, but he must fight it, just like his heart that's desperately increasing the blood pressure to rise the metabolism rate. Joy, aneurysm is joining the race to be the first to off him.

The ringing in his ears has finally died down, and he starts hearing some sounds,... from behind? The hoods look cool and all, and provide some protection as well as partly cover your face, but they also muffle sounds and block your field of vision. Definitely not something fighters should wear into battle if they don't have the power to see through clothes, screw you Assassin's creed. Rolls from his curled sittng position onto a (slav) squat on his feet, he then does a combination of standing up and turn around, only to be surprised by a hand in front of his face, apparently about to reach for his shoulder. He instinctively pulls back mid-motion, loses balance on the slanted surface and falls flat on his butt.

Blinking a few times to adjust to the sunlight that's now in his face, he finds himself in front of a pair of kids (there's no way these two are adults with their small size and young features of there faces, even with dwarfism), both cladded in thick blue coats with hood, dark pants and shoes, all of which have a homemade look to them. Made of pelts, apparently. The reaching left hand earlier belongs to the slightly bigger kid, who stands closer and holds to the side a short thick white stick with a pointy curved tip, a weapon of sort. A few steps further away stands the other one, with softer, rounder features (a girl, may be, the other is likely a boy, by comparison), but same light brown colour of the skin. She does not have any weapon ready, but holds her hands up in some guard. Anyway, with their small size, he probably could hold them both off in case of a fight, may be even in his current state. Not that he were going to pick a fight now. Getting somewhere warmer from this vastness requires coopertation, not robbing the first one you meet, even if looting corpses for better clothing has never been a too uncommon practice in human history.

Seeing him moves and falls, the armed kid jerks back his hand, mouth held slightly ajar in mild surprise. The girl, howerver, quickly steps forward to just behind to the side of her companion, half leans forward and half peeks over the boys shoulder and starts speaking with a concerned look:

"Hey, are you alright? Are you hurt? You're bleeding! Do you need help?"

Something is off about her speech, but he couldn't yet put a finger on it. Before he could formulate a reply, the boy turn around and cut in:

"Wait up Katara, this guy could be a dangerous Fire Nation spy! We must question him first!"

"Don't you see him bleeding? It's all over his face and the ice! And his clothing looks so thin, and his feet are bare! He's going to freeze to death if we don't do something!"

"Now, Katara, first of all, you are exaggerating. Only his nose is bleeding, and that blood on the ice is only a smear from his hand when he fall on his butt. And if he is a Fire Nation spy, he's deserved to die for spying and being sent here so unprepared!"

"How could you said that!? What would Gran-Gran say if she knew you found someone lost on the ice plain and left him to death? And beside, he couldn't be a Fire Nation spy, Dad's driven their ships away, where could this one get in from? And moreover, we both have seen how he dropped in here moments ago!"

"May be that's some of there voodoo spooky dark fire magic they cooked up to throw their spy around undetected or something? Kind of like some thing you do with that water magic of yours..."

While the kids turn all their attention to each other in their argument, he curls back into a squat to keep warm and observes. He is being suspected to be a spy for a 'Fire Nation' whom these kids' group is having violent conflict with, that could prove dangerous. There's apparently humanitarian rules here, at least set and enforced by this "Grangran", either a name, title, or an endearing way of refering to grandparents? These two might be siblings or cousins in that latter case. They believe in magic, to some extend.

And then, he finally finds what is off about their speaking: he could absolutely not identify what language they are using, yet he can still understand everything they says. He couldn't tell exactly what sound they are making with their mouths, as though the audial signal is muddle somehow, so he could not correctly pair it with the movement of their mouth or compare to the three languages he speaks or any of smatterings of others he's got through osmosis from media consumption. Nani dafug???

Anyway, he's losing heat too fast here, his body's trembles are getting hard to control. This matter must wait. For now, he must assume that that language phenomenon works both way, and opts for English, in case it doesn't but these Inuit-looking kids can understand such widespread one. Clearing his throat to draw attention, he calls to the kids, which takes him three tries since his throat are contracting in this cold air before audible sound could be made:

"Hello there. I don't know where this is or how did I get here, but I guarantee you I have no intention to harm you. I need help. I request shelter and food, and I will repay the expense in full."

The kids stop their argument and turn to him with visible slight confusion on their faces. Do they not understand, or hear him? He's about to repeat and planning to do it again in German, but then the boy raises his weapon again:

"How do we know you are not Fire Nation spy?"

"Sokka!" the girl shouts indignantly at her companion.

"I don't even know what 'Fire Nation' is, much less work for them anyhow. If you still have suspicion, I am willing to answer any and all questions you have to the full extend of my knowledge, once I get somewhere warm. I'm freezing to death here and then I would not be able to answer anything, would I?"

The boy considers this and hesitantly slowly lower his weapon, while his companion chirps in: "Fine then, we will let you take shelter at our village. You will have to tell us everything. And you better pay us back. What do you say, Sokka?". The boy pauses a beat, then nods. Good, problem postponed. "Then I am grateful for your acceptance. May I also request something to wrap my feet with? I don't think I can go very far with my current gears."

The girl procures a rectangle piece of fabric from some bag or pocket hidden in her coat and motions her companion to do the same. He seems to be against this, but soon relents, giving him a similar though significantly smellier cloth.

"If you have problem with I using this to wrap my feet, I will wash it before returning it to you. If I get access to liquid water and detergent, that is."

"You know how to wash clothes?" is the reaction of the pair, though with different tones of surprise.

"What? Why the surprise? How else do you suppose to have clean things to wear?"

The boy looks somewhat embarrassed and sputters something that sounds like "... women's job..." and the girl give her companion a derisive look at that. Ha, that's how it is, eh? You should and would suffer some more for that attitude, boy.

Finished wrapping the clothes around the frontal part of his feet and securing them under the strap of his sandals, as well as tying up the cuffes of his pants to reduce air circulation along his legs, he carefully stands up. The kids were smaller than how he previously estimated from his position on the ground. The girl, Katara, stands at around 135cm, and the boy, Sokka, can't be anymore than 145cm. If not for his shivering and battered state, his height of 182cm might be imposing to them. Is it normal here to let kids this small wandering around unsupervised on a frigid ice field?

"So,... My rescuers, may we start moving? Do you have a vehicle, or mount?"

"No, we don't have polardog-sled or snow leopard-caribou, if that's what you are asking. Not anymore. And our village is not too far from here, we don't need them around this part." answers Katara.

Just what is a 'leopard-caribou'? Ok, whatever, later. Just get going for now. Though just how far is 'not too far', he wonders. He doesn't expect such little kids to have a good grasp on measuring anyway. "Then please lead the way, and go as fast as possible."

As it turns out, even at a fairly brisk pace for the kids, by his freezing brain's estimation it is still nearly two hours away on foot toward the sun before reaching the kids' village, if this dozen of tents and igloos could be classified as such. After rounding the slope he was on, which was actually a fairly big mound of elevated ice of comparable size to the hill near his grandma's place in Từ Sơn, the way to the village is again slanted downward toward the sea, with rock formations protruding through from underneath the ice here and there. On the way, he doesn't dare freeing his hand from hugging and massaging himself to retrieve his phone from the slingpack on his back. Bringing it out in this cold would just kill the Li-ion battery anyway. Opening his mouth to talk makes him lose even more heat, so their group of three walk in silence, which occasionally get disturbed by the growls of his stomach, which prompt a few chuckles from Sokka and concerned looks from Katara.

Not having enough time for lunch during his lab sessions, on such days he eats his fill at breakfast, and normally that's enough for him to last well until dinner, but suddenly finding himself on an ice field after getting thrown in an accident after nine hours of lab work is definitely not normal. His legs give out as he shambles past the village's snow gate, and he folds into a shivering ball right there. Through his slowing senses, he notices Sokka yelps and swoops down to check on him, then starts dragging him by the arm toward the biggest igloo, soon joined by some adults who heeded Katara's frantic call for help. As he is being brought inside, he hears Katara's and some others' voices call 'hey you, hey hey, stay awake, wake up, hey man,...', evidently trying to rouse his brain.

Fights off the clanking of his teeth, he manages "... call me... Khan." before exhaustion takes the last of his consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, mc has received a name and reached the first human settlement, though not without mild suffering :v The intergration and training would soon begin!


End file.
